Psychology's interpretive turn : the search for truth and agency in theoretical and philosophical psychology / Barbara S. Held.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Held, Barbara S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychology--Philosophy.

Psychology.

Physical Description:

xi, 415 pages ; 26 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, [2007]

Summary:

Two of the most fundamental and pervasive philosophical questions in psychology are: Is objective psychological truth possible, and how does that possibility pertain to human agency, or our capacity for self-determination? For over 25 years, postmodern theorists have maintained that an antiobjectivist or antirealist philosophy enhances human agency by making us free to be what we interpret ourselves to be. However, in the last decade, a new wave group of theorists with hermeneutic, pragmatic, and constructionist origins has put forth views that are replacing those of conventional postmodernists. Their dual mission is to defend the realism denied by postmodern antirealist psychologists while upholding the agency they believe to be denied by modern objectivist psychologists.

Contents:

The postmodernist roots of the middle-ground theorists

An introduction to the middle-ground theorists

Ontological point 1: an ontology of "being in the world," or, a situated psychological existence

Ontological point 2: a middle-ground realist ontology?

Ontological point 3: an ontology of situated agency and transcendence

Ontological point 4: an ontology of flux and flow

Situated knowing: a middle-ground antiobjectivist epistemology?

Situated warrant: a middle-ground realist epistemology?

Rational agency.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 365-378) and indexes.

ISBN:

9781591479253

1591479258

OCLC:

77270966